


one star at a time

by atrata



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21539239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atrata/pseuds/atrata
Summary: it was in bobcaygeon / where i saw the constellations / reveal themselves one star at a time
Relationships: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski
Comments: 1
Kudos: 47





	one star at a time

**Author's Note:**

> written ages ago for tumblr user candlesandpretense, to go with the above lyric, which is from the Tragically Hip's [Bobcaygeon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6QDjDPRF5c), a song I have not been able to listen to in many years.

_Hey buddy, I been thinking, maybe--_ No.

 _Fraser, what if we--_ No. You?

 _Fraser, what if you--_ No.

 _You know, Frase, I know--_ What? No.

_Ben--_

Shit, no. Ben? Ray chomps down on a new toothpick and tries to remember if he’s ever once called Fraser “Ben.” Nope. Nothing comes to mind. Well, a whole lot of things come to mind, actually, once he starts thinking about Fraser, but--

“Kowalski! Got a case.”

Ray jerks his hand away from the phone and looks up as a file hits his desk. “Yeah, okay. Who’s my partner on this one?”

*

“The Role of International Cooperation in Community Policing,” he reads. “That sounds like some bullshit, Captain.” He wads up the letter and spins in his chair, gets his shot all lined up, an easy three-pointer, nothing but net. “Ain’t really a conference guy, all that ass-kissing–-”

“They want you to speak,” Welsh says.

Ray groans. “That’s even worse.”

“You could invite Fraser.”

Ray misses his shot.

*

He sees Dief first, and then he doesn’t see much of anything because Dief knocks him over in the middle of the airport and licks his face until Ray’s laughing so hard he thinks maybe he’s crying.

“Hello, Ray.”

Ray buries his face in Dief’s fur. Yeah. Yeah, he’s crying. Shit.

*

“So,” he says, in the car, the windows down, the music up, his toothpick gnawed to pulp. “So. So.”

Fraser looks over, expectant. “I can’t hear you, Ray.”

“How’d you know I said anything, then?”

“I can read lips.”

Ray rolls his eyes. “I never even looked at you.”

“Yes, I did notice that, Ray.”

Ray turns up the music. Dief licks his ear. Fraser shouts, “You can just take me to the consulate, if you don’t mind.”

Ray almost plows into the car in front of him but fine, fine. The consulate. “Whatever you want, buddy.”

Twenty minutes later, he pulls up to the curb and watches Fraser get out of the car and throw his giant backpack over his shoulder. That thing must weigh more than Ray does, but Fraser tosses it around like it’s nothing. Ray stares real hard at the steering wheel.

“Dief!” Fraser calls, like he thinks Dief is going to jump out the window. “Come on, get out of the car.”

In the back seat, Dief turns in a circle, lays down, and buries his head under his paws. Fraser calls him a few more times.

“He’s deaf, Fraser,” Ray says.

“Thank you, Ray.”

Ray rolls his eyes and leans across the seat, tilts his head so he can look up and out the open window at Fraser. He seemed shorter in Canada. Maybe it’s the angle. Maybe it’s the jeans. Ray always has liked the look of Fraser in a faded pair of jeans.

“Guess he thought you were gonna stay with me,” Ray says.

Fraser blinks and clutches at the strap of his backpack like it’s going to float away. He drags his thumb over his eyebrow. He says, “Oh. He really shouldn’t make that sort of assumption. It’s rather rude. I’m sorry.”

“Fraser.”

“But as he seems to have no intention of going anywhere, perhaps--”

“Get in the car.”

Ray thinks he sees a smile flicker on Fraser’s face. It’s pretty hard to tell, considering the hat, but when he pops the trunk, Fraser throws his bag back in.

“Thanks, Dief,” Ray whispers under his breath.

Dief lifts his head and -- Ray is pretty sure he’s not making this up -- winks.

*

At Ray’s place, they order some pizza. Fraser produces a bottle of wine from his bag. Ray doesn’t know anything about wine, which means Fraser clears his throat and delivers a lecture on the grape-growing regions of lower Ontario. It’s a pretty short lecture, actually, or it seems that way to Ray, who hasn’t had a good lecture in forever. And the wine’s good, and the pizza’s hot, and they put on a hockey game, some Canadian team Fraser likes.

“I tried to watch hockey while you were gone,” he tells Fraser, who isn’t listening, which is fine, because the rest of that sentence is something about how he doesn’t give a fuck about hockey, he just liked thinking about how maybe Fraser was up in a log cabin somewhere with a half-wolf and a black-and-white TV, watching the same game Ray was watching, listening to the same announcer rant about the trap, whatever that is.

At the whistle, Fraser says, “Tried?”

“Turns out, if you want to watch hockey here you gotta go to a game in person.”

“Live hockey is very exciting.”

“Yeah, but--” But the point was to do the same thing Fraser was doing, and Fraser couldn’t go to the game with him, so: no point. “Maybe we could catch a game while you’re here.”

Fraser’s mouth moves for a while before any sound comes out. “I’d like that, Ray. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he says, pointing, grabbing another slice of pizza. “You’re buying.”

*

The sky’s a dull gray when Ray staggers out of his apartment at a quarter after nine the next morning, his head aching for no good reason. He was supposed to be at work fifteen minutes ago. He blames the wine.

“Wine?” Welsh asks.

“It was Canadian,” Ray says, and Welsh nods like that makes any sense.

“Sure. Take some aspirin, put on your uniform, and get your ass down to McCormick Place. They need some backup.”

Great, uniformed backup at a convention center. Ray knows what that means: if he’s very lucky, he’ll get to yell at some assholes in expensive suits for jaywalking. Exactly why he became a cop.

He groans. He should’ve taken the day off to hang with Fraser, work on their talk. But no, he was saving up his vacation for reasons he hadn’t figured out yet. So today he was working, and Fraser and Dief had headed for the consulate at the crack of dawn to pay homage to the Queen or something. They were going to swing by the precinct later to say hi to the guys, but in the meantime, there’s Ray, hungover in the locker room, elbows on his knees, trying to force himself into some polyester.

He stares at the uniform, stares out the window, thinks about maybe quitting.

*

There aren’t any assholes in expensive suits for him to yell at. Instead, there are assholes in wizard outfits, which, now he thinks about it, probably were pretty expensive. Ray can’t get a straight answer about what the hell kind of convention it is, but there are magicians and some kind of fucking snake-oil salesman with magic powder that doesn’t do the right kind of magic. At least, that’s what Ray thinks the guy in purple robes and aviator sunglasses is shouting about. “Sir,” Ray says, “I’m gonna need you to calm down” -- and then there’s a woman in fishnets and a top hat standing on a table -- “Ma'am, I-- oh, shit” -- and the next thing Ray knows, he’s in the middle of a riot.

Fraser would’ve been able to talk that guy down, he thinks, ducking under a trash can that comes flying at his head. He flips a table to its side and crouches behind it, wishing Fraser was here, glad Fraser’s safe somewhere else. Something shatters by his head -- a bottle, he thinks, but when he looks, it’s a beaker like they used in high school science class. He didn’t think those things broke, but there goes another one, another.

The shouting gets louder, the smoke thicker. Ray needs to get to the other cops before this gets any stupider, but he can’t see for shit. Fraser would know what to do, but he’s way more Canadian than Ray, and his crazy ideas always work. Ray’s crazy ideas just end up with him hiding behind a card table while lunatics in velvet robes lob beakers at his head. One of them shouts that he’s a fascist pig.

Ray really needs a beer.

*

It takes forever to get things calmed down, and forever and a day to deal with the aftermath, which is mostly paperwork. It’s quarter-after nine in the morning by the time he stumbles back into his apartment, a full twenty-four hours after he left.

Fraser’s standing in the middle of the living room, back in those jeans, his hands jammed into his back pockets. He looks pale, except for the shadows under his eyes, the stubble on his jaw. It’s been a while since he shaved, and his hair is standing up a lot like Ray’s does.

Ray stares at him, his mouth dry, his stomach doing that thing it does when he’s so exhausted he wants to throw up. _Fraser_ , he thinks, _you make me wanna throw up_. Nice one, Kowalski. Real smooth talker.

“Fraser,” he manages to say, and then he lurches across the room and collapses into Fraser’s arms.

Fraser holds him steady while he shakes apart, muttering about the stupid riot and how all he could think about was Fraser the whole time and that was even stupider and “this is just not gonna work, Fraser, I hate this, I hate this, I can’t--”

Fraser kisses him.

Ray almost starts crying again, but he’s got a better idea. He thinks Fraser has some freckles on his shoulder and if Ray could just see them again, map their shape, lick between their lines, then everything will be okay.

“Right, Frase?” he asks, shoving Fraser to the couch, slowly tugging the shirt off him. He was right: there are the freckles. Ray kisses them, one at a time.

**END**

**Author's Note:**

> [[on tumblr](https://atratum.tumblr.com/post/167031742079/prompt-rayfraser-it-was-in-bobcaygeon-where)]


End file.
